SYRIA: After three years of bloody civil war, polls have opened in the country's presidential election which tyrant Bashar Assad is expected to win.Voting is only taking place in pro-Government areas in a ballot seen as a farce which would hand him a third seven-year term in office.

UK: A new drug appears to have saved a man dying from advanced skin and lung cancer. Warwick Steele, 64, had been given just months to live. But after the pioneering drug pembrolizumab, he seems to have made a miraculous recovery and his tumours have nearly disappeared.

JAPAN: Sony is pulling the plug on its hand-held PlayStation Portable video games machine after 10 years.

UK: House prices soared by 11% over the last 12 months to their highest average ever of £186,512. The big rise in prices – prompting a warning from the EU to cool the housing market – was the fastest annual growth seen since June 2007, the Nationwide Building Society reported.

SOARING: Fastest house price growth for seven years [PA]

UK: Landlords “tied” to large pub chains and treated unfairly with high rents and beer prices will be given better protection under long-awaited plans announced by the Government.

UK: Obesity rates are being blamed for a shock rise in the number of so-called "sumo babies" being born to overweight mums.

KENYA: Intelligence chiefs are probing a possible sighting of Samantha Lewthwaite, the UK terror suspect dubbed the White Widow.Ms Lewthwaite - accused of links to Somali Islamist group al-Shabab - was apparently given a police escort to visit a Kenyan army base in Somalia before disappearing.

MOVIE: Whistleblower Edward Snowden's life to be brought to big screen [Getty]

US: Film director Oliver Stone is to write and direct a film about Edward Snowden, the CIA whistleblower granted asylum in Russia after leaking National Security Agency files.

CANADA: A couple in Canada endured a rollercoaster ride of emotions when a lottery ticket worth 50 million Canadian dollars (£27 million) went missing - only to be found and returned by someone at their church.

Hakeem Nosiru and his wife Abiola - originally from Nigeria - misplaced the ticket after he taped it to the inside of her purse for safe-keeping. A frantic search with bins emptied produced nothing - until a fellow member of the congregation discovered the ticket and reunited it with them days later and they claimed their prize.